What Death Cannot Touch
by rhyejess
Summary: Sirius has returned after OotP as a ghost. He and Remus are living together, but it takes a while for Sirius to learn how to do anything more.


From the moment Remus had become aware that Sirius was haunting him, Remus's life had changed. Though Remus was careful to keep an outward appearance of complete normalcy lest anyone decide he was losing his mind, Sirius still colored his every thought and action. In the evenings he came home to the small flat he kept in Muggle London and found Sirius pacing the front hallway. When he was away, Sirius could do next to nothing. For instance, Sirius had difficulty manipulating objects. For the first days after his appearance in the flat, Sirius followed Remus everywhere until Remus had to ask him to stay home. It was quite difficult to pretend you weren't losing your mind, after all, when your partner's ghost was driving you bonkers with his inane chatter at all hours of the day.

Sirius had looked like a kicked puppy when asked to stay home, but he said he understood. Then, once Sirius was staying at home, he seemed to do nothing all day but wait for Remus to come back home, pacing the carpet by the front door so often that Remus could almost fancy it was starting to flatten. Was that possible?

Remus had done his best. He'd started by leaving books open but understood when Sirius said it was infuriating to read one page and not be able to flip to the next. Finally, he'd bought a Muggle tele with his very limited money and set a channel on all day. Sirius was grateful, but Remus could see that some of the light was leaving Sirius's eyes. This was another form of imprisonment, and Sirius had spent too much of his life imprisoned to want to spend his death that way as well. That was when Remus relented, returned the television, and invited Sirius to spend days with Remus on tasks he was given by the Order or at the low-paying Muggle jobs he held.

Still, through all of it, Sirius remained impotent to move the world around him, to touch even a strand of hair, to brush a kiss on Remus's lips- nothing was possible. Remus had thought it would come sooner. For the first month, Sirius was right there, maddeningly close, but when he touched Remus he passed right through. How many times had they struggled to hold hands, to kiss, only to be frustrated? Remus always tried to swallow his anger, knowing it was no more Sirius's fault than his own. But did he really know that? On some level, Remus _did_ blame Sirius. Remus had known the ghosts at Hogwarts well enough to know they could touch people if they wanted, and could manipulate items as well. Sirius could not touch him, so didn't that mean Sirius didn't want to?

But Sirius's frustration was just as obvious as his own. "That book you had about haunting said it would come in time," Sirius repeated almost daily. Still, over that first month they had both lost hope more than once. _Nothing_ was coming, no matter how much time they spent struggling to touch each other. It hadn't helped that Remus wasn't touching himself, feeling too strange about doing so in front of Sirius. Especially now that Sirius was, well, dead. Maybe Sirius wouldn't even feel arousal any more?

Somewhere near the end of their first month like this, Remus had gone out alone. He came home and was surprised that Sirius was not pacing in anticipation of his return. Checking the entire flat once, Remus made immediately to his bedroom. He had been sleeping alone in here, Sirius not being in a condition that required much sleep. Closing the door from habit, he climbed on the bed, making short work of his trousers and pants. He had not touched himself in much too long. Now that the dark cloud of Sirius's death had been wiped from his life by Sirius's ghostly return, he had been aching for this one affirmation of his own continued existence. He would have preferred Sirius's hands on his half-hard arousal rather than his own, but beggars could not be choosers. He threw his head back and pumped hard and fast, trying to get this over with as one might want to tear off a bandage. After the past several months, Remus expected it to be painful, but it was also a necessity.

Suddenly, even as Remus reached the point of no return, the place where he knew no matter what happened he had to continue seeking his orgasm, Remus heard Sirius's voice echoing through the flat: "Remus? I know you're home, your jacket's-"

Sirius did not knock of course, and the door did not move even a millimeter, but suddenly Sirius was on Remus's side of the bedroom door. "Hanging up…" Sirius finished.

Remus, his hand still moving on his urgent cock, looked over his shoulder to see the well-dressed ghost of Sirius standing with wide eyes fixed on Remus's moving hand. Remus was unsure what to do, unsure of whether he should stop in deference to the fact that this was something Sirius could not do. Luckily, Sirius rescued him by whispering, "Merlin, don't stop on my account." Sirius also did not avert his gaze, but watched until Remus spent himself onto the bed. Then, as suddenly as he had entered the room, Sirius left again, leaving Remus alone with too many thoughts.

They did not talk about it. There seemed to Remus nothing to say except an apology, but what was he apologizing for? Sirius was generally quiet now, and he seemed to be losing interest in the things happening in the living world. He no longer wanted to discuss Order business or even what Harry was up to. Sometimes he stared out the window for hours at a time, and Remus wondered that Sirius's animagus wasn't a house cat.

One Sunday afternoon, Remus was reading the Prophet and Sirius was watching the crowds on the street below, when Sirius turned towards Remus and said, simply, "I wanted to, you know."

"Wanted to what?" Remus asked, turning the page of his paper.

"Touch you. Holy hell I did. But I couldn't stand the disappointment. I want you to know, I don't mind if you touch yourself. And I understand if you don't want me to watch."

"Where were you that day, when you weren't home?"

"Looking for ghosts, actually. I wanted to ask them… well, I found one, just a little girl, but she wasn't very helpful. She said to touch things you only have to want to, but I _do_ want to and I still _can't_. So she said maybe I hadn't found something I wanted badly enough." Sirius's voice was tight with frustration and bitterness. "She's wrong, Remus. I _do_ want to."

At this, Remus put down the paper. After a moment to carefully plan what he was going to say, Remus replied. "She could be right."

"She couldn't, she's not-"

"You didn't even try to touch the thing you say you wanted to touch most."

Sirius's sad eyes captured Remus's. "The thing I want most to touch is your hand, you sod. I mean, all of you is lovely, but I feel as though I am drifting away from you. I imagine myself as a balloon or something, and I want most to simply hang on."

Remus folded his paper and walked across to the window to stand next to Sirius. He reached out his hand to Sirius's ghostly one and said, "Please don't go, Sirius."

Sirius reached out his own hand, and to Remus's surprise, he could feel Sirius's warm- _warm!_- palm against his own. He squeezed, and Sirius's hand tightened in his grasp rather than slipping through. Remus and Sirius stared at each other for a heartbeat in wonder before, by some mutual understanding, they came crashing towards each other. It began as a hug, deep and warm, clinging to each other for life. Then Sirius's hands found the corner of Remus's face, and they kissed. Sirius's breath was cold as ice, but his lips were still hot and soft. Remus tripped over his own feet trying to backpedal towards the bedroom, but Sirius stopped, looking sternly at Remus as he said, "Please don't be disappointed if I can't… if there's anything I can't do."

It turns out there was nothing to be disappointed about. That first post-death coupling was so fast that Remus could not remember much about it after the fact. He did know they never made it to the bedroom, and that he had fallen down on the couch with Sirius on top of him. Instantly, or so it seemed in his memory, they were naked, and Sirius was so warm, almost on fire, though his breath was still a wintry wind. He'd spread his legs, preparing for a dry fuck, but Sirius spit liberally onto his own hand and then spread the sheen onto his cock so that when Sirius entered Remus, there was very little friction- though Remus might have welcomed some; Sirius's spit had made his cock icy. Remus could feel the chill passing into him along with the pleasure and pressure. It only took a few frantic thrusts and Sirius was coming- another frighteningly cold experience for Remus. Sirius's hand grasped Remus's own cock and though Sirius's cock was ice cold, his hand was an inferno. Sirius's hand might have burned him if he hadn't come when he had.

"You… that…" Sirius mumbled before his warm weight was pressing on Remus.

"You're so hot and so cold," Remus whispered, dumbfounded. "There's nothing like it."

Sirius chuckled. "You'll have to tell me about it later. Now, sleep."

"I thought you don't need sleep."

"I thought so too, but I was wrong." Moments later, Sirius was snoring.

As Sirius's mastery of sex progressed, so did his mastery of moving all objects. Through pleasant experimentation, they found that it was simply touching and moving anything that was a part of the physical world that exhausted Sirius. Everyday movement of objects was not especially taxing, but after sex Sirius often slept easily ten hours. For this reason, they fell into a routine of sex twice a day: once at night so Sirius could sleep while Remus slept, and once in the morning so Sirius could sleep through Remus's absence.

One day after Remus returned home to find Sirius still drowsy and relaxing in the rumpled bed, Sirius raised his head and commented, "Did it ever occur to you that all I do around here is sex? I'm your undead sex slave, Moony."

"Are you suggesting you find employment?" Remus asked teasingly.

"I could probably go haunt Grimmauld Place or something."

"I like you where you are," Remus said, eyeing the bare semi-transparent planes of Sirius's chest.

"Alright, I'll be your sex slave, but first there's something I want to try." Sirius's smile was decidedly kinky. "And for that, you will have to obey _me_."

Remus nodded acquiescence. "Is now a good time?"

Sirius grinned greedily. "You read my mind. Take off those stuffy clothes and join me in this warm bed, why don't you?"

Remus happily obeyed, and soon he was curled naked around an equally naked Sirius under a worn cotton sheet. Remus never wanted to take this for granted. He never wanted to forget the pain of Sirius's death or the madness of being unable to touch Sirius. He wanted to be grateful for every kiss and every feather-light stroke of his finger along Sirius's warm semi-transparent skin.

"I've been practicing," Sirius interrupted Remus's thoughts. "I've been trying to partially interact with the world and partially not to."

"I don't know what that means," Remus admitted.

"Watch." Sirius slowly sank into the mattress until he appeared to be about three inches deep. He wasn't _bending_ the mattress, no. It was more like he was swimming inside of it. Then he pursed his lips and rose back to the top. At first he floated there with no sense of weight, but slowly the mattress relaxed under him, bearing him on its surface.

"How-?"

"It's just a matter of will once you figure it out," Sirius answered. "I understand now why no one could really help me with it. Even now, I don't think I could explain it to someone else."

"It, uh, seems like a rather useless talent," Remus admitted. "Open a door or walk through it, it all accomplishes the same thing in the end."

"Sure," Sirius shrugged. Then his hand disappeared into the mattress and Remus yelped as he felt a firm pinch on his arse.

"What?" Sirius asked, "Wasn't that the same as just having someone pinch you? It all accomplishes the same thing in the end."

"Alright," said Remus, "I'm game. What's your plan."

"Oh," Sirius said through his feral grin, "That's not all. Watch this." He held up one hand until it disappeared entirely.

"Where did it go?" Remus asked, hating that he sounded so alarmed.

"It's still there, but it's invisible." Then _all_ of Sirius began to fade.

Remus pressed his lips together, trying to shut down a slowly-building terror at seeing Sirius disappear before his very eyes.

Remus was quite relieved when Sirius spoke from the nothingness beside him on the bed, his voice filled with mirth: "You know where I am now, but how about…."

Suddenly, Remus felt a tickle along the bottom of his foot. He jumped. Then he felt a hand caressing his head. This time he started but did not jump. Another pinch on the arse, and then a cold kiss on his collar-bone, and Remus raised his hands, "You've proven your point. You are exceedingly talented at the art of uncanny sexual advances."

To Remus's surprise, nothing else at all happened for several minutes as he lay there in bed. He began to get worried, sitting up and looking around, though if Sirius wanted to be invisible there was no way Remus knew of to get around that. "Sirius?" he asked the empty room.

In response to his query, he felt hot hands grip his hips from beneath the mattress. He lay back down, and the mattress beneath him whispered into his ear with Sirius's voice, "Close your eyes, Moony."

Remus did as he was instructed, and for a long moment, he only felt those hot hands moving over his arse and back. Then, without preamble, he felt a cold, slick cock at his entrance. This was entirely unexpected as he was lying on his back on the bed. He jumped and Sirius's disembodied voice laughed and whispered, "Lay back down. You promised you would do what I asked."

Remus obeyed, and he was ready this time when he felt the cold, hard, wet length along his arse. He wanted to cling to Sirius or to move, but he had no way to do so. Sirius seemed to be within the mattress, but clinging to the mattress was not the same as clinging to Sirius. Nevertheless, Remus grabbed handfuls of sheets and pulled on them as he felt Sirius slide into him.

From beneath him, Sirius whispered, "Don't make a sound. I want to practice fucking you where no one would know. We could do this anywhere." Sirius laughed gleefully. "You don't even have to take off your trousers, I can go right through them."

Remus hardened at the thought, though he secretly hoped it was a fantasy and not a future plan. Nevertheless, he did not make a sound, and tried as well not to move his hips, as impossible as that proved. Sirius moved within him until Remus felt the cold, ghostly sensation of Sirius's ejaculation- a sensation he had grown used to and, in fact, come to love. Suddenly, he found that he could see Sirius's arms wrapping around him from behind. One of Sirius's hands came to his cock, but Remus needed very little help in reaching his own orgasm with a violence that made him temporarily insensate. When he again became aware of himself, he was no longer lying on the bed, but against Sirius's warm chest, Sirius's cock resting inside of him still.

"I love you," Sirius murmured, his voice sounding distant with sleep and fatigue.

Remus pulled himself away from Sirius to lie on the bed and cover them both with a blanket- for though Sirius did not feel the cold, Remus's sweat was turning to ice on his skin. Remus wrapped an arm around Sirius and nuzzled the semi-transparent hair that still smelled like leather and motor oil somehow. "I love you too. Now sleep."

Sirius obligingly dropped off to sleep, though Remus soon rose to make himself a sandwich and read the Daily Prophet. When he climbed back into bed hours later, Sirius had managed to rumple all the covers and was taking up the entire bed. Remus kissed Sirius on the forehead, whispering, "There are so many things about you that death cannot touch."


End file.
